IT Survival Guide

It was a cold, dark night when a weary IT professional opened the e-mail from her manager with the news: She was being pulled from the Exchange upgrade project and redeployed to work on a new voice-over-IP system, which would serve as a key component in a long-term plan for unified communications.

Sound familiar? We've all been there--asked to come up to speed quickly on technologies outside our expertise and experience. For every IT staffer and manager stuck in this situation, InformationWeek has created this Survival Guide. Tuck it away for the next time you get asked about network access control, open source, or virtualization. We've highlighted the opportunities for cost cutting and innovation and the keys to success. It's meant to help get you through the next business technology storm, because you can be sure it's coming.